By Farouk A Peru
Kamarul Zaman Yusoff is not a happy man. After his facile police report last week against Hannah Yeo, the conscientious Rakyat across racial and religious boundaries spoke out in a united, deafening voice: YOU ARE STUPID!
Unrepentant, Kamarul wrote in Free Malaysia Today that he is absolutely not stupid. He was only recently appointed to lecture at UUM. Before that, he was a director at a political research institute (PAPAN) and used to study at an American University of Bloomington Indiana, where he was an awarded a BA with high grades. Funnily, he did not mention his MA nor his PhD. I wonder why…
When do you call someone stupid?
In this lengthy denial above, Kamarul did not actually address WHY he was called stupid. We did not call him stupid because he was not a high achieving scholar. Rather, the nation called him stupid because he claims that Hannah Yeoh’s biography made him admire her Christian God. Kamarul did not address this point at all in his rebuttal above. As a lecturer, he should know that not addressing the point would earn him an F for FAIL.
But let’s be charitable to this deplorable individual. Let’s assume that he’s an intelligent person who deliberately made that malicious police report. What would an intelligent person who did such a thing possibly be?
- A malicious individual – being an ‘intelligent’ man, Kamarul should know that there are extremists in Malaysia. Pastor Raymond Koh has already disappeared presumably for preaching to Muslims. Only a callous, heartless individual would impute Hannah Yeoh of the same ‘crime’ and make her a target for extremists.
- A man of weak faith – Presumably Kamarul went through religious education in school. And further, he is a highly ‘intelligent’ man. Should he not know then the standard arguments Muslims have against Christian theology and the Bible itself? If he did not, what would a person of high intelligence do? His doctoral thesis was about PAS and so all the more reason he should understand religious polemics.
- A political and religious opportunist – It is possible that Kamarul simply made the report simply to curry favour with certain parties. Malaysian politics being the sleazy, abysmal cesspit that it is, would welcome any cheap shot toward any of the three C’s (Chinese, Christianity and Communism which they link the DAP to). By making a police report against Hannah, Kamarulcan ingratiate himself to Islamofascists and Malay Nazi types. PAS Youth already expressed support for him so what more can we say?
So which is your motivation, Kamarul? You are not a stupid man, as you say so it must be one of the three motivations above. Which of these machinations were you trying to pull to fool the Rakyat?
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By Farouk A Peru, Islamologist and author
Knowledge and wisdom are based on application.
Wisdom depends on unlearning ad relearning.
It is not mere accumulation of facts; it’s in applying facts differently. A person of knowledge may attempt to curb mosquito menace by spraying cans of air borne repellent. A wise person may seek out an organically derived repellent which could be applied directly on the body. Wise people acquire maturity when they can dispassionately argue differing opinions; based on facts surely, but acknowledge they are opinions still. By what stretch of imagination does one hope to have his report investigated, by the police? Under which provisions of the law? Religion is purely subjective.
Sometimes when you feel you are overly clever/smart, you become stupid. Terlampau pandai,jadi bodoh. In academic snyone can be clever but in reasoning of fsctual life can be stupid. So not every clever man can be clever, they sometimes show the stupid side of them….